Lo rejects merging eHealth+ and HA Go apps
On.cc · 3 SOURCESabout 1 hour ago2 MIN
Summary
Hong Kong’s government told the Legislative Council health panel on October 23 that it does not plan to combine eHealth+ with the Hospital Authority’s HA Go into one app. Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau said HA Go handles many service-level details, while eHealth+ is expanding in scope, so a merger would turn the platform into an unwieldy “giant elephant”, though the two systems already have interfacing functions.
Key Points
- At the Legislative Council Panel on Health Services meeting on October 23, lawmakers asked whether HA Go and eHealth+ should be merged into a single application.
- Lo Chung-mau said HA Go manages many detailed services, and folding it into eHealth+ would make the latter too complicated and cumbersome.
- The government said eHealth+ registrations have exceeded 6.57 million, covering more than 87% of Hong Kong’s population.
- Officials said the platform is linked with more than 4,700 or 4,800 major public and private healthcare providers, with over 65,000 registered healthcare professionals.
- Private-sector electronic health records uploaded to eHealth+ this year are expected to rise by more than 130% from last year, while the app has logged over 4.42 million downloads and average monthly logins above 1.41 million
Why It Matters
For patients, the immediate issue is not whether one app disappears, but whether hospital services and territory-wide health records can work together smoothly across two platforms. The debate also points to continuing pressure on the government to balance convenience, system complexity and operating costs as digital health services expand.